The present invention relates to a pet food, more specifically, a pet food which is easily suited to a pet""s liking because of having the same taste and mouth feel as conventional pet foods and which has a dieting effect. The present invention further relates to a method which suppresses an increase in the body weight of a pet or reduces the body weight of a pet by using the pet food of the present invention.
Recently, there area lot of cases where pets, for example, dogs and cats, are tenderly bred like part of the family and many kinds of pet foods which are suited to each animal are on the market. These pet foods are prepared taking into consideration nutritive values and the likings of pets. However, diseases such as obesity and diabetes have frequently occurred due to insufficient exercise and overeating, thereby causing serious problems to keepers.
Therefore, in order to suppress overeating, it has been a practice to reduce the feeding amount or to feed a pet food containing a dietary fiber in a prescribed amount. However, if the feeding amount is reduced, health may be impaired. In addition, the pet food containing the prescribed amount of dietary fiber is not suited to a pet""s liking, so that the eaten amount is reduced, thereby, also causing impairment of health.
Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a novel pet food which is suited to a pet""s liking because of having the same taste and mouth feel as conventional pet foods, and which can suppress an increase in the body weight of a pet or reduce the body weight of a pet with the same feeding amount as usual.
Further, an object of the present invention is to provide a method which can suppress an increase in the body weight of a pet or reduce the body weight of a pet without impairing the health of the pet.
A pet food with the aim of suppressing an increase in body weight or reducing body weight has not been known so far. For example, disclosed in Japanese Unexamined patent Publication (KOKAI) Heisei No.6-217,710 is a pet food with the aim of preventing and treating skin diseases of pets. In this publication, disclosed is cyclodextrin, which is used as a component of a pet food of the present invention as one of vehicles, as described below. However, in this publication, there is no mention that cyclodextrin is used for the purpose of suppressing an increase in body weight or reducing body weight.
In addition, the research on the influence of cyclodextrin on eating disorders of rats was reported (for example, Ryoichi Mori, Mitsuhiro Furuse, and Junichi Okumura, 1997, xe2x80x9cInfluence of cyclodextrin on membrane components and absorption functions of small intestine mucous membrane in ratxe2x80x9d, p.129, The 92nd meeting of Japanese Society of Animal Science). However, results obtained from the research on rats, which are omnivorous and have no gall as well as degrade cyclodextrin by fermentation in the large intestine, can not be applied to dogs or the like which are carnivorous and have no gall as well as cannot degrade cyclodextrin because their large intestine is not developed.
The present invention is a pet food comprising a cyclodextrin, preferably xcex2-cyclodextrin.
In particular, the pet food of the present invention is a dog food or cat food, further it can be a jerky or an object food.
Further, the pet food of the present invention preferably comprises fat in an amount equal to or higher than 5% by weight per solid part, as well as xcex2-cyclodextrin in an amount ranging from 1 to 15% by weight per solid part.
In addition, the present invention relates to a method which suppresses an increase in the body weight of a pet or reduces the body weight, characterized in that the aforementioned pet food of the present invention is fed to a pet. The present invention further relates to a method which suppresses an increase in the body weight of pets or reducing the body weight, characterized in that the pet food according to the invention is fed to a pet so as to ingest xcex2-cyclodextrin in an amount per day ranging from 0.1 to 5 g per 1 kg of body weight.